In the avalanche of new and re-released recordings issued to mark
the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth it would be easy to
overlook or even ignore this rather dull-looking box. Next to EMI’s
Benjamin
Britten - The Collector's Edition [37 CDs available for little
more than £1.00 per disc is superb value] or the even more daunting
Decca offering; Britten
- the Complete Works [66 discs which will set you back at least
£166.00], Documents’s mere 10 discs would appear to barely
scratch the surface. Add the historical nature of the bulk of the
recordings (and the inherent audio limitations such an epithet implies),
the somewhat random choice of repertoire, the complete lack of liner
notes let alone texts and even the £10.00 price-point seems
a tad high.

That said, hidden away in this box are at least two if not three recordings/performances
which genuinely deserve the title “Great Recordings of the Century”.
Large collections of recordings risk duplication of performances and
repertoire but I would suggest that anyone with even a passing interest
in British 20th century music - regardless of their opinion
of Britten in particular - ought to have a recording of Peter Grimes
and the Serenade in their collections. That being the case
it is hard to argue against the performances offered in this box being
as near definitive as makes no difference.

Nearly all those included here are well known and indeed famous so
I do not intend to discuss their artistic merit in any great detail.
Before moving onto individual discs, listening to this set made me
realise that Britten was a lucky composer. I’m talking
here about his recorded legacy. He was fortunate to be at his creative
peak at a time when Decca where pushing the boundaries of recording
techniques and had the budgets and artistic will to invest heavily
in a 'contemporary' British composer. The improvement over the decade
which covers most of these recordings is astonishing going from murky
mono to demonstration class analogue stereo.

Aside from his composing skill Britten was blessed with a seeming
ability, when conducting, to inspire the performers involved to produce
performances of exceptional quality. Altogether, this created what
is probably the finest and most extensive "the composer conducts"
archive surpassing even Stravinsky's legacy on Sony/CBS which are
simply not of the same technical brilliance. As copyright has now
lapsed on the earlier recording companies such as Documents are able,
magpie-like, to compile sets such as this. What it may lack in any
kind of artistic overview or coherent programming it gains in the
sheer musical quality.

To take the discs in order; first up is the Decca-sourced 1953 recording
of the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings conducted by Eugene
Goossens coupled with the 1958 Les Illuminations. This is my
favourite version of the Serenade which features original performers,
Peter Pears and Dennis Brain. The first version, with Britten conducting
the Boyd Neel String Orchestra, is very fine but suffers from substantially
poorer sound. The third Pears recording - a stereo remake again with
Britten on the stick is also very fine indeed with Barry Tuckwell
as horn soloist but Pears' voice is noticeably less fresh than it
was just a few years earlier. Also, the presence of Brain is a major
plus. His actual technical playing may not be such a thing of wonder
any more, graced as we are with so many superb players, but where
he is peerless - pardon the near pun - is interpretatively. This is
phenomenally intense and searching playing. The transfers are good
although - in direct comparison to the Australian Eloquence version
they are slightly more edgy with the strings having a rosiny attack.
Les Illuminations does not fare as well - Pears sounds less
at ease with the French text and the New Symphony Orchestra are somewhat
scrappy. The Serenade is of supreme quality and actually worth
the cost of the set alone. Documents's sloppy presentation is evident
by the fact that the triptych of these songs cycles is completed with
the Nocturne on the second disc even though there is room on the first
but only after the one clunking dud of the set - a 1953 (as listed
by Michael Kennedy in his Master Musicians Series biography) not 1954
performance conducted by Britten with the Danish State Radio Symphony
Orchestra of the Sinfonia da Requiem. Has this most overtly
and directly emotional of all Britten's works sounded quite so laboured?
Add the fact it is presented as a single twenty minute track and it
rules itself out of court. Then again, with the performance of the
Nocturne we are back on classic Decca demonstration quality
recording with performance to boot. I must admit I had forgotten what
a fine work the Nocturne is. The LSO are in especially refined
form with the named soloists from within the orchestra proving what
a stellar ensemble they were at the time. William Waterhouse's bassoon
is a particular delight. The actual sound Pears makes epitomises the
style that people either love or loathe - even his most ardent admirer
would be hard pressed to say he possessed the most beautiful tenor
voice but the expressive connection with the words is magnificent.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the definitive version of
Peter Grimes which occupies discs three and four. This is the
complete classic Decca recording from 1958. Listening to this all
over again it has to be acknowledged as one of the greatest operas
by any composer of the 20th century and with many of the original
cast recreating their roles in remarkable Decca Stereo sound this
is a performance that might be equalled but can never be surpassed.
Direct comparison with the recent Decca re-mastered re-release shows
this to be indistinguishable. The absence of texts is actually no
hindrance to English speakers - every word is crystal clear. The musical
qualities of this set are well known but it is worth a quick mention
for the production and engineering team led by Erik Smith. Smith -
the son of conductor Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt - was just twenty-seven
when he was assigned the production of this opera - his first major
recording in the role of producer for Decca. At the time he was very
much the junior to John Culshaw but to my ear this recording matches
the best of Culshaw's work and it remains one of his greatest achievements.

Quite why Documents decided to include the Britten/Pears 1959 Die
schöne Müllerin complete as disc 5 I have no idea. Britten's
accompaniments are a model of discrete attentiveness but I do fear
Pears' singing here has that arch coyness that puts me off a certain
style of lieder singing. I'm glad to have heard it, but alongside
direct and ardent contemporary performances such as those from Fritz
Wunderlich it simpers. I was rather surprised not to enjoy Eduard
van Beinum's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra on disc
6 more. After all, this was the version I grew up with in its Ace
of Clubs LP incarnation featuring - why does the brain bother remembering
such details! - a pair of young boys earnestly concentrating on a
concert. Hearing it again, it comes across as rather rough and scrappy
both as a recording and in musical execution. Worse still is van Benium's
unsmilingly sober approach with steady rather than exhilarating tempi;
there is really no reason to choose this version over dozens of others
offered in much finer sound. The coupling is the 1954 Britten/LSO/Julius
Katchen performance of the still-little-known Diversions for piano
(left hand) and orchestra. This was the coupling on the original Decca
LP for the previously mentioned Sinfonia da Requiem but this
is a far finer performance. That being said it does not approach the
sonic standard Decca would reach just four years later with Peter
Grimes. The sound here is detailed but without the richness and
warmth of the later recordings. This is a rather fine and enjoyable
work which remains stubbornly on the periphery of its composer's well-known
works. It strikes me that Katchen hits an excellent balance between
drama, wit and bravura. This makes for another short-playing disc,
but well worth it for the concertante work.

Disc 7 again represents the arbitrary nature of Documents's programme
planning. A 1971 (according to the choir's own website) recording
of the ever-popular Ceremony of Carols from the Wiener Sängerknaben.
It’s coupled with the only modern performance in the box; a
2002 version of the Violin Concerto from Copenhagen with violinist
Sergej Azizian conducted by Osmo Vänskä before his international
career blossomed. More challenging to one's preconceptions is the
very specific sound of the Viennese boys choir in the former work.
This is about as expressive and as far removed from the 'bleached'
Anglican church choir sound one has grown accustomed to as it is possible
to achieve. The knee-jerk reaction is to think "oh I don't think so"
but the longer I listened the more I was drawn into this version.
The solo parts are sung with a timbre and intensity that is very compelling.
This is far from an immaculate interpretation - in fact I was expecting
something rather more refined but what I enjoyed was the attack and
vibrancy offered in perfection's place. Unlike the neglected Diversions
the Violin Concerto has fared relatively well in the recording studio
at least. I have not heard Tasmin Little's recent offering on Chandos
and in fact James Ehnes' recording is in my current batch of discs
awaiting review. Azizian - whose discography seems to include this
as his only concerto disc (originally released on ClassicO with a
rather fine version of the Walton - a very logical coupling) - is
a very nimble and neat player fully up to the considerable technical
challenges of this early work. Vänskä's accompaniment is
unfussy, overall a very convincing version - another work which belies
the fact that Britten's reputation is said to rely on his vocal and
operatic works.

Disc 8 is the second shortest of the lot - clocking in at an abject
39:38. Again the choice of coupling is hard to fathom; Karajan's 1953
Frank Bridge Variations with the Philharmonia alongside the
brief Charm of Lullabies song-cycle sung pleasantly and with
appropriate simplicity by Pamela Bowden. Karajan's performance is
good without offering anything in the way of revelatory insights -
again the 1953 recording shows its age with an element of wiriness
to the string tone. As before, this strikes me as a version which
has been superseded and so has little more than curiosity value today.

This is not something that can be said of the work that completes
the box on discs 9 and 10. Britten's only full-length ballet, The
Prince of the Pagodas, remains surprisingly little-known. Surprising
because this is without doubt one of Britten's more colourful and
emotionally unambiguous scores. It was around the time of its composition
that Britten heard Gamelan and the first flush of discovery can be
heard suffused throughout the score. Perhaps the work is not as melodically
memorable as other Britten scores but it remains an exhilarating listen
- especially so in this dynamically exciting Decca-sourced recording
from 1957. Again the sound does not reach the heights of richness
that the same team would achieve nearly two years later but it remains
very fine indeed. Important to note that Britten sanctioned some minor
cuts to fit the work into a 2 LP set. For an absolutely full version
the only other option is the excellent performance from The London
Sinfonietta under Oliver Knussen on Virgin/EMI; it’s part of
the 37CD EMI set. Again, it is hard to ignore the primacy of this
earlier recording.

So for the Serenade and Peter Grimes this set contains
performances that would grace any collection. Add to that the very
real quality, interest and rarity of the Nocturne, Diversions
and The Prince of the Pagodas again in definitive versions
plus a fine fiddle concerto and a challenging Ceremony of Carols
and I can accept a couple of duffers and poor presentation at the
offered price - there is much more gold than dross. On the other hand
would it really be asking too much of the Documents team to show a
little more intelligence in their handling of the material they have
access to?